Fake news, sensationalized media and blatant lies disguised as journalism have, unfortunately become major themes this year. Facebook's finally stepping up to stop the spread, but some academics and data journalists have been working on the problem of viral misinformation for longer, with guides to help students become better news consumers and extensions to flag fake news.

A new online tool called Hoaxy is the latest among these efforts, and perhaps the most visual one yet. Hoaxy is a website created by Filippo Menczer, a professor at Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media. Menczer actually started working on the problem more than seven years ago, studying how social networks detect spam. 

"I cannot say we have been too surprised by fake news. But the virality of outlandish claims has gone beyond my early predictions," Menczer told Motherboard in an email. "I had assumed that reliable news would have an edge over fabricated ones.